Episodes
Tuesday Feb 06, 2024
/388/ Betting on Bukele (I) ft. Nelson Rauda / Juan Rojas
Tuesday Feb 06, 2024
Tuesday Feb 06, 2024
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El Salvador’s Bitcoin Paradise Is a Mirage, Nelson Rauda, NYT
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Behind Bukele's Revolution, Juan Rojas & Geoff Shullenberger, Compact
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On Security, Bukele and Petro Have a Problem in Common, Juan Rojas, Americas Quarterly
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In response to killings, El Salvador’s bitcoin president attacks civil liberties, Nelson Rauda, LA Times
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The Rise of Nayib Bukele, El Salvador's Authoritarian President, Jonathan Blitzer, New Yorker
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Chaos in Ecuador, Guillaume Long, Sidecar/NLR
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¡Viva la ‘eficracia’!, Martin Caparrós, El País
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
/374/ You’re Gonna Need Representation ft. Vincent Bevins
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
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Why were protests in places that were so different all look so similar?
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Why was there such a focus on spontaneity, leaderlessness, peformativity, and horizontalism?
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What are some examples of the ways protests rejected representation?
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Was class or generation more important in driving these protests?
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Why did media becomes so important in pursuing political change?
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How can we avoid a repeat of the failures of the 2010s?
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If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution, Vincent Bevins, Public Affairs
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The mass protest decade: why did the street movements of the 2010s fail?, Vincent Bevins, The Guardian
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The End of the End of History: Politics in the 21st Century, Bungacast authors, Zer0 Books
Tuesday Oct 24, 2023
/371/ The Milei Massacre Didn’t Happen ft. Ernesto Seman
Tuesday Oct 24, 2023
Tuesday Oct 24, 2023
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What is 'Peronism' and how does it occupy so much political space?
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How does Milei appeal to informal workers using market ideology?
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What is distinct about Latin American populism?
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How is anti-populism used to denigrate the masses?
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What is the role of nostalgia for the golden age in Argentina?
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In Chile and Argentina, anti-populist politics is failing, Ernesto Seman, FT
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Breve historia del antipopulismo (Brief History of Antipopulism), Ernesto Seman
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Ambassadors of the Working Class, Ernesto Seman
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Javier Milei is not done yet, Alex Hochuli, Unherd
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Javier Milei is not a South American Trump, Alex Hochuli, Unherd
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/367/ Don’t Pay Them Back ft. Jerome Roos
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/189/ Pink Tide Paradoxes ft. Fabio Luis
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/93/ Hot Chile and Other Neoliberal Failures ft. Pablo Pryluka
Tuesday Oct 10, 2023
/367/ Don’t Pay Them Back ft. Jerome Roos
Tuesday Oct 10, 2023
Tuesday Oct 10, 2023
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Memoria del saqueo (Social Genocide), film on 2001 debt crisis and uprising in Argentina (many versions available online)
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/83/ Now It’s Syrizous (episode on Syriza's defeat in Greece)
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The World in One Country: Greece, Jonas Kyratzes (part of ep.200)
Tuesday Sep 19, 2023
UNLOCKED: /351/ Eating the Left’s Lunch? ft. Cecilia Lero & Tamás Gerőcs
Tuesday Sep 19, 2023
Tuesday Sep 19, 2023
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Philippines: /52/ Duterte's Despotism ft. Nicole Curato
Tuesday Jul 11, 2023
Excerpt: /351/ Eating the Left’s Lunch? ft. Cecilia Lero & Tamás Gerőcs
Tuesday Jul 11, 2023
Tuesday Jul 11, 2023
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Philippines: /52/ Duterte's Despotism ft. Nicole Curato
Friday Oct 28, 2022
/299/ Micropower & Transcendence in Brazil (Bungazão 2022) ft. Miguel Lago
Friday Oct 28, 2022
Friday Oct 28, 2022
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Batalhadores do Brasil, Miguel Lago, piauí (in Portuguese)
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The self-help guru who conquered Brazil, Alex Hochuli, UnHerd
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What Lula's Comeback Means, Alex Hochuli, Compact
- Do que falamos quando falamos de populismo, Miguel Lago & Tomás Zicman de Barros, Companhia das Letras (in Portuguese)
- Linguagem da destruição, Miguel Lago et al., Companhia de Letras (in Portuguese)
Listenings:
- On anti-corruption: /297/ Bungazão 2022 (Clean & Godly) ft. Benjamin Fogel (on anti-corruption)
- On the war of all against all: /292/ Bungazão 2022: Unrealistic Pragmatism, ft. Unbridled Possibility Collective
- On the role of the military: /284/ Bungazão 2022 ft. Alcysio Canette
Thursday Oct 20, 2022
/297/ Bungazão 2022 (Clean & Godly) ft. Benjamin Fogel
Thursday Oct 20, 2022
Thursday Oct 20, 2022
On corruption & anti-corruption.
When Bolsonaro won in 2018, he rode a wave of anti-corruption sentiment. Now he's doled out billions in pork via a secret budget, but this doesn't seem to bother his supporters. What happened?
Benjamin Fogel, who studies the history of corruption in Brazil, comes on to discuss how a moralistic account of corruption has fortified the far right. How has corruption been used as a political weapon in the past, and how has it shifted from right to left and back again?
How are scandals made rather than born? And what would an anti-corruption politics that is emancipatory look like – rather than the predominant technocratic or moralistic form today?
Readings:
- Against Anti-Corruption, Benjamin Fogel, Jacobin
- From Anti-Politics to Authoritarian Restoration in Brazil, Alex Hochuli, Jacobin
Thursday Sep 29, 2022
/292/ Bungazão 2022: Unrealistic Pragmatism, ft. Unbridled Possibility Collective
Thursday Sep 29, 2022
Thursday Sep 29, 2022
On Brazil's containment of the crisis.
We talk to members of the Unbridled Possibility Collective (Fabio Luis B. Santos | Thais Pavez | Daniel Cunha) about their intervention, trying to look beyond this week's election in Brazil.
What does establishment support for Lula this time round represent? Is Lula guilty of "unrealistic pragmatism"? How will Brazil react to a potential coup attempt by Bolsonaro?
And we look at the deeper social and structural context: what are the features of the Brazilian "war of all against all"? How does Bolsonaro accelerate these tendencies?
We conclude by looking at the possibility of a new 'Pink Wave' in Latin America and examining the state of the Brazilian left.
Readings:
- After the Election: a Contribution to the Debate, Unbridled Possibility Collective, Damage
- /189/ Pink Tide Paradoxes ft. Fabio Luis
- Brazil's Arrested Development, Alex Hochuli, Jacobin
- Policing Bolsonaro's Brazil, Alex Hochuli, Verso
Tuesday Sep 06, 2022
/286/ What Was Communism? ft. Branko Milanovic
Tuesday Sep 06, 2022
Tuesday Sep 06, 2022
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Capitalism, Alone, Branko Milanovic, Harvard UP
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The Aloofness of Pax Sinica, Branko Milanovic, Global Policy Journal
Monday Sep 05, 2022
/284/ Bungazão 2022 ft. Alcysio Canette
Monday Sep 05, 2022
Monday Sep 05, 2022
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Will Bolsonaro Be Held Responsible for Brazil’s COVID-19 Disaster?, Alcysio Canette, Jacobin
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Cálice podcast, Atabaque Produções (in Portuguese)
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Pro-Bolsonaro Protests Were Supposed to Show His Strength. Instead, They Showed His Weakness, Alex Hochuli, Jacobin (on last year's 7 September protests)
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From Anti-Politics to Authoritarian Restoration in Brazil, Alex Hochuli, Jacobin
Tuesday Nov 30, 2021
/228/ Three Articles: Popular Backlash in Chile, India, Europe
Tuesday Nov 30, 2021
Tuesday Nov 30, 2021
On people power on three continents.
We discuss Chile's landmark elections, the first after the uprising of 2019-20, which see a face-off between left and far-right; Modi's repeal of controversial laws that provoked a huge mobilisation of farmers in India last year; and protests and riots against new lockdowns and vaccine mandates across Europe.
Articles:
- Has the Backlash to Progressivism Come to Chile?, Lili Loofbourow, Slate
- In Rare Show of Weakness, Modi Bows to India’s Farmers, Various, NYT
- Violence in Belgium and Netherlands as Covid protests erupt across Europe, Jon Henley, The Guardian
Other relevant episodes
- /93/ Hot Chile and Other Neoliberal Failures ft. Pablo Pryluka
- /198/ Universal India ft. Achin Vanaik
Tuesday Jun 29, 2021
/200/ The World In One Country ft. Many Guests
Tuesday Jun 29, 2021
Tuesday Jun 29, 2021
On world history, 1900-2020.
For our 200th episode special, we pose the question: "If you had to study the history of only one country from 1900-2020, and thereby understand the history of the whole world, which would you pick?"
We invited 10 contributors to each pitch one country, whose particularities capture the universal sweep of world history from the start of the 20th century till now.
Vote for which you think is best, and we'll have the top 3 back on to discuss in more depth: Link to voting page
Running order:
- (18:20) Germany - Dominik Leusder
- (23:02) Greece - Jonas Kyratzes
- (27:57) India - David Adler
- (33:46) Indonesia - Vincent Bevins
- (38:25) Iraq - Liam Meissner
- (44:03) Italy - David Broder
- (49:19) Mexico - Roger Lancaster
- (54:01) Taiwan - Nic Johnson
- (59:44) Turkey - Arash Azizi
- (01:04:32) Yugoslavia - Lily Lynch
Buy our book! Links to retailers
Come to our London book launch! Event link
Tuesday Apr 27, 2021
/189/ Pink Tide Paradoxes ft. Fabio Luis
Tuesday Apr 27, 2021
Tuesday Apr 27, 2021
On Latin America's progressive wave and its discontents.
A new book on Latin America argues that 'pink tide' governments tried to treat the symptoms of neoliberal capitalism while allowing the underlying situation to worse. We talk to the author, Fabio Luis, about cases across the region, including the election in Ecuador and Venezuela's disaster, to Bolivia's coup and Argentina's "path of least resistance". How important is regional integration and what does an alternative socialist vision entail? And we ponder a sad question: is the dream of development and modernisation over?
Readings:
- Power and Impotence: A History of South America Under Progressivism (1998-2016), Fabio Luis Barbosa dos Santos, Haymarket
- /93/ Hot Chile and Other Neoliberal Failures ft. Pablo Pryluka Bungacast
Tuesday Apr 20, 2021
/187/ The Huge Package State ft. Anton Jäger
Tuesday Apr 20, 2021
Tuesday Apr 20, 2021
On cash welfarism and state investment. Plus regionalism in Belgium & the UK.
Anton Jäger is back on the pod to discuss the emerging 'transfer state'. We examine Biden's massive trillion-dollar spending plans and ask if this means we're leaving neoliberalism. What are the limitations to the 'cashification of welfare'? Also comparisons with cash transfers or lack thereof in the UK, Brazil and Belgium.
Plus Anton talks us through recent Belgian history and why its immobilism and bureaucracy has actually prevented a full-on neoliberal assault.
[Part 2 available at patreon.com/bungacast]
Readings:
- “Welfare without the welfare state”: the death of the postwar welfarist consensus, Anton Jäger & Daniel Zamora, New Statesman
- Joe Biden Is a Transformational President, David Brooks, NYT